<b>Archives International, May 23:</b> National Banknote Assortment of Original 1st Charter, Plain Back and Date Back Issues. Lot of 6 notes, Includes Pennsylvania Nationals, First National Bank of Selins Grove, 1865, $1… $3,200 to $4,400

Rare Book Monthly

Sometimes a Great Notion Aka A FREE Offer!!

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By Bruce McKinney

The used book business has been a predictable business since the day after Gutenberg printed the first book. "I have a nice copy in original boards. The Count who bought it thought it had pictures." With that, the used book business was born and it has remained remarkably unchanged.

What have changed are the prices. And as prices have increased so too have buyer expectations. At ten dollars anything you say is fine. At a thousand dollars I'd like to see it in writing. It's understandable.

Higher prices carry with them the expectation of more professional cataloguing. To ask more you need to say more. Many sellers crib the descriptions of other copies and often this is apparent to buyers who can not be impressed. It is simply lip-synching. So how can you quickly and effectively research a title? One way and frankly the best way, is to see if we have a sequence of listings pertaining to this title in our database, the AED. If we do you can look for those descriptions that make your case for importance and valuation. Build your description with interesting and informative "quotes". If you can explain it then others can understand it. This is how you build client relationships and sell books.

All books have a pricing history and it is not simply the array of prices on listing sites today. If a copy at auction recently sold for $300 then listing your book for $800 is probably too high even if others are listing their book around that price. You need to know this history. On AE all book and ephemera auctions worldwide are posted ahead of the sale, priced after the sale, and then immediately added to the database for reference. Our records stay current.

<b>Forum Auctions: Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper. May 31, 2018</b>

<b>Forum Auctions, May 31:</b> Book of Hours. Hours of the Virgin [Use of Rome] in Latin, miniature illuminated manuscript on vellum with 6 full-page miniatures and 6 large initials with borders, Flanders, [2nd quarter of 15th century]. £6,000 to £8,000

<b>Forum Auctions, May 31:</b> Pasternak (Boris). <i>Doktor Zhivago</i> original typescript, 2 vol., with manuscript corrections and insertions by the author, the George Katkov copy, c.1956. £100,000 to £150,000

<b>Forum Auctions: Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper. May 31, 2018</b>

<b>Chiswick Auctions, May 30:</b> Ransome (Arthur). <i>Swallows and Amazons,</i> FIRST EDITION, ownership inscription to half title. Only 2,000 copies of the first edition printed. £3,000 to £4,000

<b>Chiswick Auctions, May 30:</b> Sewell (Anna). <i>Black Beauty: His Grooms and Companions. The Autobiography of a Horse. Translated from the original Equine,</i> FIRST EDITION, engraved frontispiece. £3,000 to £4,000

<b>Chiswick Auctions, May 30:</b> Potter (Beatrix). <i>The Tale of Peter Rabbit,</i> FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING, limited to 250 copies [with] the FIRST PUBLISHED EDITION. £12,000 to £15,000

<b>Chiswick Auctions, May 30:</b> Wells (H. G.). <i>War of the Worlds,</i> original Danish manuscript, the text written out in block script ink, with over 620 original drawings in ink and watercolour. £1,800 to £2,200

<b>Chiswick Auctions, May 30:</b> Toulouse-Lautrec (Henri de).- Clemenceau (Georges). <i>Au Pied de Sinai,</i> NUMBER 104 OF 355 COPIES, with the suite of 10 lithographs by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in 2 states. £1,500 to £2,000

<b>Sotheby’s Paris, May 24:</b> JESUITS. <i>Relation de ce qui s’est passé en la Nouvelle France en 1635</i> […] 1672. Period calf binding. Very rare set of letters about life in the French territories among warring Indian tribes. 12,000-18,000 €

<b>ALDE, May 30:</b> BRETON (André). <i>Arcane 17.</i> New York, Brentano's, 1944. One of the 25 first copies with the original etching signed by Roberto Matta. 6000 to 8000 €

<b>ALDE, May 30:</b> HÉRON DE VILLEFOSSE (René). <i>La Rivière enchantée.</i> Paris, Bernard Klein, 1951. One of the 25 first copies on japon with an original watercolored drawing signed by Léonard Foujita. 60,000 to 80,000 €

<b>19th Century Shop:</b> Charles Darwin on sexuality and the transmission of hereditary characteristics: Autograph Letter Signed to Lawson Tait. Down, 17 January [1877].

<b>19th Century Shop:</b> MILTON, JOHN. <i>Paradise Lost. A Poem written in ten books.</i> London: 1667. A very rare example with the contemporary binding untouched and with a 1667 title page.

<b>19th Century Shop:</b> Hamilton secures the ratification of the Constitution: <i>The Debates and Proceedings of the Convention of the State of New-York, assembled at Poughkeespsie, on the 17th June, 1788.</i>

<b>19th Century Shop:</b> The social contract “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains”: ROUSSEAU, JEAN-JACQUES. <i>Principes du Droit Politique [Du Contract Social]</i>. Amsterdam: Michel Rey, 1762

<b>19th Century Shop:</b> “The first English textbook on geometrical land-measurement and surveying”: BENESE, RICHARD. <i>This Boke Sheweth the Maner of Measurynge All Maner of Lande…</i>